1. Luxury retail is about “emotions, not transactions.” It’s increasingly clear that brands cannot acquire customers affordably online. The direct-to-consumer model has not made anyone any money. – Read More on McKinsey
2. Generative AI Is Challenging a 234-Year-Old Law. Companies such as OpenAI and Meta have argued that their language models “learn” from books and produce “transformative” original work, just like humans. Therefore, they claim, no copies are being made, and the training is legal. – Read More on the Atlantic
3. Rolex Sales Top $10 Billion as Luxury Watchmaker Gains Ground, Morgan Stanley Says. The dominant Swiss luxury watch brand produced 1.24 million timepieces in 2023 with sales of 10.1 billion Swiss francs ($11.5 billion). That’s a gain of 11% from 2022. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. What Is It with the Price of Clothes? “Are these brands just pushing the limit to see how much I will spend? Even when funds are unlimited, there comes a point where people are like, ‘How many things do I want to buy when I could redo my bathroom for the same price?’” – Read More on Vogue
5. South Korea’s Coupang eyes luxury goods after earning first profit. After snagging its first ever operating profit last year, Coupang is aiming to extend its reach in the domestic market beyond food and daily necessities to luxury goods, leveraging a recent acquisition of high-end U.K.-based platform Farfetch. – Read More on Nikkei
6. Saks Survey: Consumer Optimism Not Lifting Luxury Sales. “Luxury consumers are significantly more optimistic about the economy and about their own personal finances, but it takes a while for feelings of optimism to translate into plans to spend on luxury.” – Read More on Yahoo